[seydor]

> late 90s and early 2000s you could download pretty much anything you wanted, immediately, for no cost.

This is still true today btw, but the broader user base includes a lot more people willing to pay

[toss1]

What may prevent more of it today is that "cracked" software has been found to be a handy delivery mechanism for malware so, especially after the spread of cryptocurrency and ransomware utilizing it for payment, there is a reasonable fear of your download coming with an extremely costly payload.

So, oddly enough, the transnational criminal gangs are helping the corporations in a way they never could do for themselves.

[akho]

Decent torrent sites get rid of those very quickly. It’s corporations doing their own work by creating a scare.